Visa beats market forecasts
Visa reported a 33 per cent increase in quarterly profit yesterday, beating Wall Street’s expectations, as consumer spending rebounded. The world’s largest credit and debit card network earned $713m (£469m), or 96 cents per share, in its fiscal second quarter. That compares with net income of $536m, or 71 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts, on average, had expected Visa to earn 91 cents a share. The San Francisco company attributed its performance to higher-than-expected growth in payments volume and said it was increasingly optimistic about the improving economy.